Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

Read so long ago I have little memory of whatever it was I read. Why do you want to know?

Presuming you mean, transgressive; do you refer to De Sade, or me?

Pallab wrote: "De Sade ma'am"

Nobody knows what life is about. Some of us drown in it.

I am familiar with his works through articles in literary periodicals and lectures, but have never had a desire to read them.

The Marquis de Sade's literary works touch upon mindsets and activities that, unfortunately, do exist in the world, and probably always have. I personally believe them to be sick and perverse; however, pretending such behavior does not exist and is embraced by some mentally disturbed or immoral individuals only allows it to continue unabated.

I read "Justine" decades ago. I found de Sade's moral premise, that evil needs to be done to maintain a balance with good, to be wholly without merit as there is sufficient evil in the world in the form of harmful processes of nature (disease, decay) that people even in his time needed to apply all their energy to in order to attempt to tip such a balance in favor of good. Imagine how this is magnified when the evil that men do is added.